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T 11 E P 11 1 L S P H Y 

OF Tin: 

- AMEBICAN REBELLION. 

BY J. J. STEWART. 



Tt is tho misfortune of the Middle 
States, whose conservatism has so long- 
preserved our glorious Union, to have at 
length become involved in the fierce con- 
test of arms now waging for its destruc- 
tion. Word battles have, for many 
years, been fought over our shoulders by 
the two extremes, representing opinions 
equally at variance with the permanence 
of our institutions. The nationality of 
the United Stares was the offspring of the 
Constitution, which restricted the Gov- 
ernment to the exercise of only such 
powers as were conferred upon it by the 
States, they reserving to themselves and 
to the people all powers not therein del- 
egated. To that extent, however, the 
nation so created was suprertie, and de- 
clared so to be by the solemn ratification 
of the compact by the people. From 
the moment of that ratification the rela- 
tions between the United States govern- 
ment and the individual citizens compo- 
sing the body politic, were established. 
They were, in their nature, permanent 
and irrevocable. The duties, privileges 
and fealty of the citizens of the United 
States were co-extensive with the mag- 
nificent territory over which its protect- 
ing arm extended. The duties, privile- 
ges and fealty of each of said citizens to 
the State in which he resided were res- 
tricted within its narrow geographical 
limits, and confined to its reserved pow- 
ers. There was here no clashing of 
interests or powers; but as the all-power- 



' 



ful sun sheds its beneficent warmth and 
light upon the revolving planets of the 
solar system, so the central government 
shed its manifold blessings upon a har- 
monious combination of States, each 
performing, in its separate sphere, the 
duties entailed upon it by its reserved 
powers, and all by their relations wii 
great central power, adding to the 
strength and dignity of the nation. To 
prevent any conflict of jurisdiction, the 
instrument creating the government pro- 
vided for a tribunal to decide upon its 
powers. By the fluency of elections, 
also, the people were enabled from time 
to time to express their approval or 'lis 
approval of the measures of the Govern- 
ment. Human foresight could go no 
further. The wisest statesmen and pur- 
est patriots of the free and enlightened 
States of America, after having enuncia- 
ted in the Declaration of Independence 
the grand doctrines which throbbed at 
the heart and inspired the intellect of the 
greatest era the world had yet known, 
and, by deeds of valor and endurance, 
established their right to self-government, 
erected this glorious temple to the Genius 
of Liberty, at whose altar the oppressed 
of all nations were invited to worship. 

THE DECLARATION OP INI>EPENDKN< !'. 

As the utterance of thirteen colonies 
struggling to free themselves from the 
yoke of oppression, notwitstanditu the 
a: laillta which have been made upon it, 



will forever occupy that lofty position in 
the historic literature of the world to 
which its own intrinsic merits and the 
great event lt commemorates alike entitles 
Thni , g l Gat P hilos P he r and statesman 
1 nomas Jefferson, in setting forth as self 

equal; that they are endowed hy their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights 
toam^th,m^li^ 3;b ,r^a^the 
pursuit of happiness," certainly never 
could have contemplated the gross ££ 
^prehension, and perversions to which 

fe bes »W. Comprehend: 
ing politics as a science based udoii ih 

f ac « ^ths, independent of1he P co„dr: 

^.in-oundin,U>emassofmaS, 

ought to ff ^ m accordance with such 
Pnn CI ples as are legitimately substantia! 

maht to 1 ft ^ hlch human :lctio »« 

ftunl n f Ulate - d ' ai ' e the nece ^y 
oundations of a science which treats of 

the thirteen colonies gave voice to the 
i fictions which forced them to 
separate from the mother country, they 
disregarded the conditions established bv 
governments, and spoke for the w oil 
human **e and for all time. The Ten 
who signed that declaration were To 
such as would idly put their Tmes to 
»nj paper. They'were "honesT and 

*X££ S* WC fiQd that im -tSy 
toijowing the announcement of these 

sSJ " ghtS S ov ™ents are in- 
stituted amongst men, deriving their 
just powers from the consent of the Z 
orned,and that whenever any form of 

sryft bec °r ^^ °^ 

o • abo sh i ''.I J' ° f thG PG °P le t0 alter 
or abolish it and to institute new - ov . 

principles, and organizing its powers in 

ness" Tl! fc *$*¥"* and h ^~ 
forth in 1 n °, bl ° Oration stands 

a of heUi ? thG ^*° int aDd **"■* 
act ol the thirteen original States. It is 



1*1 

Ae voice of South Carolina and Vi 
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania 
chanting from the glorious LTtth 
sublime hymn to human liberty'* 
Vuantummutantabiilosl To da- 
war song-the death dealing b3 
the gory sabre-tbe sullen boom o 
destroying artillery ! And ill for, 
i or causes so inadequate that the 
ary mind fails to Comprehend theri 
with a prospect of result, so disa 
that we shrink from their contempi 
I he February number of De 
lieview for the vear 1861 in an - 
headed "Past and P leseilt ,» denn 
Ibomas Jefferson as a « Red Repubb 

who "wrote for the American ^peor 
as it they were a nation of French; 
and says that the -doctrine of 

rrepresaible conflict is the immediat 
legitimate offspring of those unblm 
sophisms and meretricious assumr 
that made the Declaration of Ind, 
deuce an instrument more proper! 
pressive of the passionate aLK 

ST/ a /f isianmo bthanth e< 
dignified and deliberate utterance 
nation temperate even in its exciten 
grand even in its follies." I s this 
fowhxch'eisendsbacktothel 
ot 76? In what colored liquid 

with what notes of exclamation will 
tory record this in her "Process of 
Si^f 'Will she not think ra 
that the hand of Time has been rm 

st forward upon the dial of the centui 
or that her old eyes have grown too , 
to see the grand truths which undo 
the great Southern Rebellion? 

THE CONSTITUTION F T„ E , INITED STA , 



j . -* »"K UKITED ST1T 

Is not inconsistent with the principi 

the Declaration. It is not "a league < 

ueatn— a covenant with hell," as 

nounced by abolition agitators time 

again. It ls the articles of co-partner 

—tne leage and covenant between s 

ereign States, receiving all its powers 

delegation, and erected into the dig 

ot a government by the potential ? 

of the people. Under that constituti 

no one State is af all responsible tor 



V 

a 

sh 

l] 

•mt 
voic 

til 



institutions of any other State. Our 
ancestors were wise enough to "organize 
its powers in suchform as to them seemed 
most likely to effect their safety and 
happiness.'' Social Institutions, though 
modified and promoted by the acts of 
government, are not the creatures oi' 
government. They evolve out of the 
character and habits of the people. They 
are indicative of the stage of civilization, 
and are changed or abolished or strength- 
ened with the credence of the people. — 

, Our forefathers understood the political 
axiom that "the first duty of government 
is to protect society." As citizens of a, 
State they had a voice in their respective 
States towards the moulding of their 
domestic institutions. The general gov- 
ernment was not created with any such 
view; any interference by it with the 
domestic concerns of a State, so as to 
entrench upon its reserved powers, has 
always been properly resented by the 
;reat body of the people. Notwithstand- 
ing this, certain persons in the' North, 
offended by the institution of slavery in 
the Southern States, early commenced 
the agitation of the slavery question as 
one requiring national interference. — 
Misapprehending the truths of the De- 
claration of Independence, and urged on 
by a fanatical zeal to realize the political 
niilleniuin, wherein equality of political, 
civil and social rights is to be accorded 
to all men, regardless of color or qualifi- 
cation, the abolitionists have overleaped 
the laws of nature and the experience of 
all time. In endeavoring to make a 
iteral application of an abstract truth, 
they have forgotten the fitness of things 
and those immutable laws of labor and 
of race which the Creator established 
before man learned the art of government 

''at ail. "All men are created equal." — 
llov. '( Not equal in parts — in intellect 
—in physical power ; but, in the lan- 

j guage of Christianity, "the high aud the 

• low, the rich and the poor, are equal in 
In sight of Cod" — as an abstract truth 
in political soien . laws 

jf nature ii ■ . . . ■ 



is their right to establish government; 
which government must, of course, be 
only up to the standard of the aggregate 

intelligence of the nation. 

"With certain inalienable rights ; that 
among them are life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness." Man has a right 
to life. That is, in the equitable relations 
which should subsist between him and his 
brethren, his life should be secure from 
harm at their hands. But may he not 
forfeit that right ? May he not, by dis- 
turbing those equitable relations, so en- 
danger another life that self-defence will 
demand a sacrifice of his own ? May not 
the welfare of a community demand that 
he shall be restricted in his "liberty and 
in his pursuit of happiness ?" Again : 
man cannot live without labor. It cer- 
tainly does not interfere with his admitted 
right to live, that, before all rights, God 

• imposed upon him the necessity for labor. 
These rights then, assumed by our fore- 
fathers to be "self-evident truths" whiJi 
formed the basis of political science, were 
undoubtedly regarded by them assubject 
to the conditions imposed upon man by 
God and the necessities of government, 
and presuppose, as applied to a nation, 

' the capacity to protect' life, to defend 
liberty, and keep the people free to pursue 
happiness. While it is quite evident, 
from the letters and speeches and public 
acts of the founders of the Republic that 
slavery was regarded as an evil to be 
endured, in the hope of its eventual ex- 
tinguishment, nothing is more apparent 
than that our forefathers intended this, 
to be 

A WHITE MAN'S GOVERNMENT. 

Any attempt, come from what source 
it may, to make this other than a white 
man's government must tail. Races of 
men are as distinct as races of animals, 
anu there is as great a repugnance be- 
tween them— a physiological fact, of whic i 
the dominant race is entitled to take 
cognizance, in establishing the status of 
citizenship. All men cannot truthfully 
exclaim with u mean, "1 

know !;<"'. know h '!>;. 



is the offspring of labor, observation and 
experience, and results not from tbe 
culture of an individual, but a nation. 
There are whole communities and whole 
races which have not yet attained know- 
ledge sufficient for the maintainance of 
freedom. It is doubted by many sound 
thinkers whether the African race ever 
can be elevated to that degree of civili- 
tion essential to the establishment and 
maintainance of liberty. We are proud 
to think ourselves of the noblest race now 
living, and yet history records the strug- 
gles of our ancestors through many cen- 
turies of ignorance and despotism towards 
the attainment of our present position — 
a position already becoming uncertain. 
Freedom is not a boon which can be 
conferred upon any people ; it is a condi- 
tion resulting from the achievements of 
those who are to enjoy it. All govern- 
ments in the earlier stages of society are 
despotic, and they lose their despotic 
character only when the nation progres- 
ses in knowledge and combines for the 
advancement of its liberties. It is a 
trite aphorism, "Who w r ould be free, 
themselves must strike the blow." As 
this is to continue to be a nation of free- 
men, it would be a violation of the prin- 
ciples of good government to admit to 
citizenship those who are not qualified to 
exercise its franchises. Admitted, that 
all the slaves of the South were emanci- 
pated to-day, what would you do with 
them ? I cannot pretend to answer that 
question, but I can tell you very surely 
what could not be done with them. You 
could not make American citizens of 
them. 

What has all this to do with the re- 
bellion ? It has much to do with it. I 
have been commenting upon the errone- 
ous views and extreme propositions of 
that class of phllanthropico-political agi- 
tators who, though few in number, have 
for many years furnished the pabulum 
wherewith the giant of secession has 
been fed. They thought they were 
pouring hot shot into him, but though 
it was hard food, he had the stomach 



of an ostrich and digested it rapidly and 
waxed fat upon it. Worse than that, 
it has begotten an antagonism which has 
changed the credence of the South. 

In 1838, Henry Clay, in the Senate, 
remarking that "there are three classes 
oi' persons opposed, or apparently oppo- 
sed to the continued existence of slavery 
in the United States," says of the third 
class, they are "ultra abolitionists, who 
are resolved to persevere in the object of 
their pursuit at all hazards, and without 
regard to any consequences, however 
calamitous they may be. With them the 
rights of property are nothing ; the de- 
ficiency in the powers of the general 
government is nothing; the acknowled- 
ged and incontestible powers of the 
States are nothing; civil war, a dissolu- 
tion of the Union, and the overthrow of 
the government in which are concentra- 
ted the fondest hopes of the civilized 
world are nothing. A single idea has 
taken possession of their minds, and 
onward they pursue it, reckless and re- 
gardless of all consequences." 

In the same year, Mr. Calhoun, speak- 
ing to resolutions he had introduced, 
said : "This (slavery) is the only ques- 
tion of sufficient magnitude and potency 
to divide this Union ; and divide it ' it 
would or drench the country in blood if 
not arrested." 

And thus Mr. Crittenden : "It might 
not be exactly true that to save the 
Union, it was necessary to follow him 
(Calhoun.) On the contrary, some were 
of the opinion, and he for one, was much 
inclined to be of the same view, that to 
follow the distinguished mover of these 
resolutions, (Calhoun) — to pursue tho 
course of irritation, agitation and intimi- 
dation which he chalked out, would be 
the very best and surest methed that 
could be chalked out to destroy this great 
and happy Union." 

And thus Mr. Clay : "I hope the 
tendency of the resolutions may be to 
allay the excitement which unhappily 
prevails in respect to the abolition of 
tiluvery ; but 1 confess that, taken alto- 



gethcr, and in connection with other 

circumstances, and especially considering 

manner in which their author has 

em on the Senate, 1 tear they 

will has e tl site effect!" 

Mr. . . "i ! iouth Carolina, in the 

I, taking advantage of the 
og created by the uncalled for and 
impertinent speech of Mr. Slade, of Ver- 
mont, upon the slavery question, prepa- 
red two resolutions, the first declaring it 
"expedient that the Union should be dis- 
solved;" the second to "appoint si com- 
mittee of two members from each State 
to report upon the best means of peace- 
ably dissolving it." 

Both Calhoun and llhett were active 
projectors of disunion, and always held 
it up as the necessary consequence of an 
enforcement of measures to which they 
were opposed. They harped upon that 
single string, discordant to every ear but 
their own, until the delicate ear of patri- 
otism became accustomed to it, and at 
last regarded it as mere party clangor 
and fustian. 

The above "extracts show two things — 
that tiie abolitionists were unwarrantably 
addling in the domestic institutions 
of the Southern States, and that the apos- 
tles of Southern independence, anxious 
to accomplish the destruction of the Uni- 
on, welcomed the agitation as "grist to 
their mill," and made the most of it. 
The tariff question in 1882 had failed 
them. Stalwart old Andrew Jackson, a 
patriot in soul, and resolute of purpose, 
had met the Nullification Ordinance with 
the pursuasivc voijee of coercion. He ad- 
tished with paternal tenderness in 
his proclamation, but wifih the firm as- 
surance that they who attempted to set the 
at defiance must be punished by the 
law. In his message to Congress upon 
the proceedings of South Carolina, Gen- 
eral Jackson allluded to the ambition* 
and personal feelings that might be in- 
volved in them. Mr. Davis, of Massa- 
chusetts, expressed his belief "that the 
discontent in South Carolina had a root 
deeper thau that of the tariff." 



Mr. Webster spoke thus: "Sir, the 
the world will scarcely believe that this 
whole controversy and all the desperate 
measures which its support requires have 
no other foundation than a difference of 
opinion, upon a provision of the Constitu- 
tion, between a majority of the people* f 
South Carotin on one side, and a vast 
majority of the whole people of the Uni- 
ted States on the other It will not cred- 
it the fact, it will nut admit the possibil- 
ity that iri an enlightened aire, in a free, 
popular Republic, under a government 
where the people govern as they must 
always govern under such si/stems, by 
majorities, at a time of unprecedented 
happiness, without practical oppression, 
without evils, such as may uot only be 
pretended but felt and experienced; 
evils, not slight or temporary, but deep, 
permanentand intolerable : asingle State 
should rush into conflict with all the rest, 
attemot to put down the power oi tl. 
Union by her own laws, and to support 
those laws by her military power, and 
thus break up and destroy the world's 
last' hope. Aud well may the world be 
incredulous. We who hear and see it 
cau •urselves hardly yet believe it." 

In the letter recently addressed to 
Geo. W.Childs, Esq., by that distinguish- 
ed naval hero, Com. Charles Stewart, we 
have the earliest recorded evidence of 
the reasons for the statesman of that day 
not believing in the ostensible cause of 
South Carolina nullification. Tn that 
letter we find that as early as 1812, in 
his first Congress, Mr. Calhoun disclosed 
to the then young captain the existence 
of a "sectional policy" on the part of the 
South, which caused its representatives, 
though aristoeratie*in their notions, to 
"yield much to democracy," in order that 
through the great ruling party of the 
Middle States, the South might govern 
the country;" but "when from division 
or any other cause," said he, "that par- 
ty shall cease to control the government, 
nothing remains for the South but to 
dissolve the Union !" 

This great revolutionist was certainly 



no stickler at trifles, for one of the prin- 
ciples of that party of Jeffersonian origin, 
was during all this time operating to 
•build up a mighty nation of voters in the 
free States by the encouragement of im- 
migration. Opposition to foreigners al- 
ways came from the Whigs and their party 
successors; while that element of the 
body politic was fostered and petted by 
the Democratic party, which received 
substantial evidence of its gratitude in 
overwhelming majorities at the polls. 
Ordinary foresight, however, must have 
foretold that this was an uncertain reli- 
ance for permanent power. And that 
Mr. Calhoun distrusted it, we find in his 
numerous warnings against assumptions 
•of power by the growing majorities of the 
North, and his pet theory of maintaining 
the "political balance" by making a new 
slave State for every free State admitted 
into the Union. 

In the mean time the rational doctrine 
of States Rights, which had been consis- 
tently and patriotically inculcated by 
Jefferson and Madison was perverted by 
ingenious sophistry from its true purport 
and made to do service in the cause of 
treason, veiled under the name of "Se- 
cession." Throughout his political ca- 
reer, from the time he first entered Con- 
gress in 1812 up to the time of his death 
in 1850, Mr. Calhoun, the embodiment 
of the "sectional policy" of the South, 
sedulously inculcated such doctrines as 
were likely to weaken the bonds of the 
Union. Of unimpeachable private char- 
acter, courteous and gentlamanly in de- 
meanor, with a keen and logical mind, 
it is not to be woadered at, that he be- 
came the idol of an increasing party, scat- 
tered through the body of other parties, 
it is true, and organized only in his own 
State in such a manner as to make itself 
effective,'but spreading and only needing 
the occasion to display itself. Being my- 
self, always a States Rights Democrat, 
and as much so to-day as ever, I can well 
remember my own pleasure at his resis- 
tance of Federal encroachment. I was 
too young then to perceive, that his pow- 



erful arguments and bitter invective were 
the result of a settled policy to, make the 
"sectional issue," paramount, ami were 
leveled at a monster of his own creation, 
which, like the hidious fiend of Fran- 
kenstein, was to become the curse and 
destruction of all he held most dear, lie 
was the author of the doctrine of secess- 
ion, which in the opinion of every other 
contemporaneous statesman meant — dis- 
union and civil war. He thus expressed 
himself upon that subject : — 

"That a State as a party to the Con- 
stitutional compact has a right to secede 
— acting in the same capacity in which 
it ratified the Constitution — cannot, with 
any show of reason, be denied by any 
one who regards the. Constitution as a 
compact — if a power should be inserted 
by the amending power, which would 
radically change the character of the Con- 
stitution or the nature of the system ; 
or if the former should faiFto fulfil the 
ends for which it was established." 

And the Convention of South Caroli- 
na on the 80th of April 1852, prepared 
the way for the future course that State 
intended to pursue by the adoption of 
"An ordinance to declare the right 
of TiiF State to secede from the 
Union. 

Which ordinance declared that "it is 
her right, without let, hinderance or mo- 
lestation from any power whatsoever, to 
secede from the said Federal Union ; and 
that for the sufficiency of the causes 
which may impel her to such separation, 
she is responsible alone, under God, to 
the tribunal of public opinion among the 
nations of the earth." 

The yeas and nays being called, the 
vote stood for the ordinance 136, against 
the ordinance 19. 

"Coming events cast their shadows be- 
fore." Franklin Pierce, of New Hamp- 
shire was President, — to the surprise of 
most people, and not less to the surprise, 
of the bulk of the democratic party that 
elected him. Few of us iiad ever heard 
of him until he was nominated. He was 
like the "fly in amber,' 7 e/urious ll > ^°°' c 



at, but bow did it get there ? The am- 
ber has now been broken and we know 
how it got there. We know that Mr. 
Calhoun to clear the way for a repeal of 
the Missouri compromise on the 10th Feb- 
ruary, 1847, had introduced resolutions 
into the Senate denying the right of Con- 
gress to legislate against slavery in the 
territories, that these resolutions (iden- 
tical with those since introduced by Jef- 
ferson Davis and passed in 1860 as a 
. trial platform for the Presidential 
campaign,) were met by an outburst of 
indignation and regarded as a fire-brand. 
His speech in support of them was ex- 
treme, and looked as usual to disunion 
f they •were not sustained. Although 
he announced his intention of having 
them acted upon — he did not call for a 
vote upon them and they were laid away, 
a set of "rod in pickle," to be used by 
Mr. Jeff. Davis, to whip the Southern 
Democracy into line with in 1860. 

The Northern Democracy were not 
thought quite ready to swallow the whole 
animal ; having yet a lingering respect 
for the Missouri Compromise as a solemn 
agreement and its unconstitutionality not 
having been declared by the Supreme 
Court. In party circles, however, dis- 
cussions were got up as to how the in- 
flrmation of this new sore was to be re- 
duced without cutting off the limb. The 
resolutions were printed and sent out for 
adoption by the State Legislature, and 
out of them sprang the doctrine of "Con- 
gressional non-intervention with slavery 
in the territories." General Cass, em- 
bodied that idea in his famous Nicholson 
letter, and being an honest and patriotic 
old gentleman and logical with, all he 
thought if the power did not exist in 
Congress it must vest some where, and 
so he placed it with the people. He 
could not perceive how the mantle of cit- 
izenship fell from a man's shoulders the 
moment he stepped from a State into a 
territory, and he become a mere subject 
of Congressional power. His views being 
prepared for the convention that nomi- 
nated him, were, of course, adopted as 



the platform, to the disgust of Mr. \'an- 
cey, of Alabama, and (Jen. Commander, 
of South Carolina, who introduced the 
Calhoun resolutions, as a minority report, 
with less success than greeted his last 
effort at the Charleston and Baltimore 
Conventions. — the minority report at 
that time receiving only 36 votes to 216 
against it. 

In 1S50, California, the first-begotten 
child of "Squatter Sovereignty," applied 
for admission into the Union as a free 
State. Horror of horrors ! What though 
the fourth of the Calhoun resolutions of 
1847 declared, and it was unanimously 
conceded, "that it is afundamental prin- 
ciple of our political creed that a people, 
in forming a constitution, have the un- 
conditional right to form and adopt the 
government which they may think best 
calculated to secure their liberty, pros- 
perity and happiness ; and that, in con- 
formity thereto, no other condition is 
imposed by the federal constitution over 
States, in order to be admitted into this 
Union, except that its constitution shall 
be republican r" What though the 2d 
and 3d of those resolutions in effect de- 
clared the Missouri Compromise uncon- 
stitutional ? 

Mr. Calhoun, in his last speech, read 
by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, when its- 
author was too ill to deliver it himself, 
made the admission of California a test 
question, in the following language, and 
though he did not live to vote upon it 
himself, he left it as a legacy to his fol- 
lowers, now grown more numerous and 
fast becoming a power in the State : "If 
you admit her (California) under all the 
difficulties that oppose her admission, you 
compel us to infer that you intend to 
exclude us from the whole of the acqui- 
red territories, with the intention of des- 
troying entirely the equilibrium between 
the ttco sections. We would be blind not 
to perceive, in that case, that your real 
objects are power and aggrandizement, 
and infatuated not to act accordingly." 

The bill was passed by a vote of 38 to 
IS in the Senate. 



Im mediately upon its passage, ten of 
the opposing Senators, tiled a protest 
,ag lins-t it, "remarkable" says Mr. Benton, 
"not account of any power exercised by 
'Congress -ever tlie subject of slavery in a 
•territory, but for the non-exercise of such 
power, and especially for not extending 
the .Missouri Compromise line to the 
Pacific ocean ; and which non-extension 
•of that line was then cause for the dis- 
solution of the Union." 

This protest was signed by Messrs. 
Hunter and Mason, "of Virginia; Butler 
and Barnwell, of S. Carolina; Turney, of 
Tennessee; Soule, of Louisiana ; Jeff. 
Davis, of Mississippi ; Atchison, of Mis- 
souri, and Morton and Yulee, of Florida. 
Davis was shortly compelled to sustain 
•his views before the people of Mississip- 
pi, as a candidate for Governor. Footc, 
who sustained the compromise measures, 
ran against him, and Davis aad disunion 
were, for that time, beaten. Yancey led 
off on the same tack in Alabama, but 
the people of Alabama turned him down. 
Now we are coming to the solution of 
the difficulty as to how the fly got into 
the amber. Intrigue and the pnllingof 
wires at conventions were accomplish- 
ments at which those gentlemen had, 
from long practice, become adepts. The 
modus ojwandi it is not worth while to 
discuss. Mr. Pierce was nominated and 
elected, and Jefferson Davis came out of 
his retirement to take his place at the 
head of the War Department, in which 
we have every reason to suppose he did 
not forget his mission. 

A disunion organ, en titled "The South- 
ern Press,' was established at Washing- 
ton, upon contributions from the Southern 
States amounting to §80,000. Its daily 
occupation was to show the disadvanta- 
ges of the South any longer remaining 
tn the Union, and the great advantages 
io be derived fromjjdisuniou — how South- 
ern cities were to become great commer- 
cial marts, and manufactures were to 
flourish. "The ships ef all nations were 
to crowd their ports to carry off their 
rich staples and bring back ample re- 



turns; Great Britain was fo bo thff aiiv 
of the new United States South ; all the 
slave States were expected to join, but 
the new confederacy was to begin with 
the South Atlantic States, or even a part 
of them, and military preparation was tn 
be made to maintain by force win. ■ 
Southern Convention should decree." — 
South Carolina and Mississippi each 
elected representatives to the proposed 
Southern Congress. But the apple was 
not ripe yet. Wait till we are ready. 

Que voulcz vans? Is not Jefferson 
Davis Secretary of War ? Wait till we 
are ready. The army and navy have 
been polled — two-thirds of the ol 
will go with the South. Another Pres- 
idential election will test the country- — 
The mud-sills of the North do not believe 
we are in earnest, although there has 
been a convention of Governors in North 
Carolina, and Wise will have "ossossioa 
of Washington with his Virginia forces, 
and every Southern fort will be in our 
hands within two weeks after it shall 
have been ascertained that Fremont is 
elected. If not elected, so much the 
better. We shall have four years more 
to prepare and make surer work of it. 

"Pennsylvania's favorite son" succeed- 
ed the "fly in amber" — and the most ac- 
complished thief of the century succeeded 
Mr. Davis in the War Department. Be- 
sides which, the author of the "Ostend 
Manifesto" had called to his support such 
choice spirits as Cobb, great at financier- 
ing, and conscientious Thompson, who 
drew three months' pay in advance to 
go down and help rush his State out of 
the Union. What matters it how fast 
the old ship sinks ! — down with her ! — 
steal whatevor you can lay hands on, and 
let the old hulk go ! But the Captain ? 
—Pennsylvania's favorite son '/ Blast 
the Captain ! — he has been bought and 
paid for — let him look out for himself ! 

And .so things are getting ready dui ing 
all these eight years. Members of the 
"League of United Southerners" are 
being elected Governors of all the States 
— arms, ammunition, money 3 cannon aro 



being Bont South — appropriations are 
being made by the Southern Legislatures 

to arm the States.' The military fever is 
got up — volunteeveompaniesaro forming 
everywhere. The Southern mind is in- 
structed — the Southern heart is inflamed, 
and all that is wanted is the occasion "to 
precipitate the Cotton States into revo- 
lution." 

Ah, poor Lands at the bellow. , indeed, would 
they be, who. having everything prepared to 
their hands, should now fail to furnish the oc- 
i for the accomplishment of their object ! 
Are not Davis and Hunter, and Mason yet in 
the Senate.? Does not Yancey, the incompara- 
ble Yankee juggler, with "Alabama ultima- 
tums,"' still survive ? A Black Republican Pre- 
sident must be elected, and to do this, the De- 
mocratic party must be divided. Douglas, it is 
apparent, is the choice of the people, His nom- 
ination at Charleston, if acquiesced in, will 
secure the triumph of the Democratic party. He 
must be put out of the way. He is a non-in- 
terventionist, and cannot be got to support the 
doctrine of Congressional intervention with 
slavery in the Territories. Jefferson Davis pre- 
pares the resolutions which are to be thestumb- 
ling-block of Douglas. The United .States Sen- 
ate is to waste its time and the country's money 
in constructing a platform for the Presidential 
campaign. The Convention is to be forestalled, 
and as, of course, it will not acquiesce, Yancey 
will manage to present an ultimatum that will 
break up the Convention and destroy the party. 
The fact that Yancey presented "non-interven- 
ion" as an ultimatum in 1856 is no obstacle in 
he way of his presenting "intervention" as an 
iltimatum in 1860. " Tempora mutanter, etnos 
nutamuryillos." 

And so the programme is carried out, until 
it last Yancey in his exultation exclaims, "1 
lave now got this accursed Union under my 
'eet \" 

Then commences a system of studied decep- 
iion — of most stupendous lying. How the heart 
?ickens at the remembrance of the disgusting 
ietails of fraud and treachery! The people 
were not hard to decieve. The crime was too 
stupendous for belief. Conviction has forced 
itself upon them by slow degrees and against 
their will. 

South Carolina seceded, and the ball is fairly 
put in motion. Two sets of people rejoice, while 
the whole country stands appalleh ! Keitt, the 
secessionist, proclaims the dearest object of his 
life accomplished, and is for carrying it out to 
the bitter end, even if it involves the whole ac- 
cursed Union in one common ruin. 

The abolitionists rejoice that the "league with 
death and the covenant with hell are I roken," 
and Wendall Phillips shouts in ecstacy, "Build 
her a bridge of gold and let her go !" 

THE STATE OP THE COUNTRY 

Was orua of unprecedented prosperity. Manu- 



factures, ooir.uierce, the various mechanic a? 
branches of trade.' cotton and sugar planting, 
were all being conducted upon such a systemat- 
ic and extensive scale as could only be develop- 
ed in a great country, after prolonged peace and 
under the operation of beneficent institutions. 
I ;» to the day of the late Presidential election, 
the prospect before -.he nation was of the hap- 
piest description. The successful candidate, 
whose election was made the pretext for South 
Carolina's precipitate withdrawal, was in a mi- 
nority by nearly a millicn. Ills short career in 
Congress proved him to hnvc been opposed to 
;.ny interference with slavery in the District of 
Columbia, a. fair test of conservatism on the 
part of those opposed to the institution. The 
party which elected him was composed of ill- 
congruous material, which, in time of peace, 
must have become demoralized and divided 
upon the development of any settled policy by 
this administration. The distribution of pat- 
ronage alone would have drawn off from his 
support a large part of his forces. 

He had been supported indifferent sections of 
the country from various motives. We have 
.Senator Biglcr's authority for saying that Lin- 
coln received in the State of Pennsylvaniaalone 
forty thousand democratic votes, to secure an 
increased duty on iron and coal, without refer- 
ence to the anti-slavery issue at all. The two 
leading journals supporting him in New York 
city were as opposite as the poles in regard to 
the tariff question and other questions of public 
economy. The Tribune advocated the doctrine 
of the old Whig party — the Post those of the 
Democratic party. The Know Nothihgs of New 
York and Pennsylvania, eager to crush the 
Democratic party, which for eighty years had 
controlled the destinies and directed the policy 
of the Republic, entered into a formal alliance, 
offensive and defensive, with the Republican 
party, an i with, it is fair to presume, the same 
views upon the question of slavery that anima- 
ted them in the support of Fillmore, four years 
before. The C4ermans of the North-West, cp- 
joying the advantages of free territory, co-op- 
erated with the so-called American Republicans 
of the East, whose narrow policy would have 
destroyed their privileges, in support of the. 
Chicago platform. Thousands of Northern 
Democrats, who would have have voted for any 
regular nominee upon the Cincinnati platform, 
and opposed to the "sectional issue" forced at 
last upon their own convention for the purpose 
of breaking up the party, becamo so utterly dis- 
gusted that they voted for the Northern section- 
al candidate to beat the Southern sectional can- 
didate. In a word, tho whole country had be- 
come tired of "Pennsylvania's favorite soH"and 
his kitchen cabinet of Slidell, Benjamin, Davis 
& Co. Tho Democratic party was still largely 
Jacksonian, and opposed to Calhounism. 

In both houses of Congress there would have 
been a majority against the administration. In 
the present Congress that majority would have 
been thirty-one in the House and eleven in the 
Senate. The President could not hare oppointod 



to 



a single officer 'without the advice and consent 
of the last named body. The laws of the land 
were all protective of wMit were especially 
termed ''Southern Rights.'' The only act con- 
travening these rights, (which had itself been 
originated and passed inl820by Southern votes,) 
the Missouri Compromise, had been repealed. — 
The Constitution and the Dred Scott decision 
defined Southern rights as to the territories. — 
The Fugitive Slave Law protected them in their 
property to an extent far greater than it was 
their policy to admit. That it could be made 
thoroughly effective had been demonstrated by- 
Mr. Fillmore in tho Burns case, at Boston. Mr. 
Pierce and Mr. Buchanan were neither of them 
lacking in Southern sympathies ; if they did 
not enforce the law with the same vigor Mr. 
Fillmore had done — I should like to know the 
reason why. Dit a moi — oh, Jefferson Davis, 
chiefest amongst the advisers of tho first ! — 
speak! most honest Floyd! "let us not burst 
in ignorance.'' Were there no soldiers in the 
North — no arms in tho North, to back up the 
Marshals with military power, as in Burns' 
ease? Or was there no case demanding such 
intervention? Possibly the latter; but you can 
tell that better than I. Certes, the truest test 
of the security of that class of property for the 
safety of which you are trying to destroy thie 
Government, was the pecuniary test. The high- 
est prices ever paid for negro slaves were paid 
during the few months preceding the last Pres- 
idential election. In New Orleans one negro 
man sold for the almest fabulous sum of $3,500, 
and that in the autumn of 1S60, and the pur- 
chaser was offered $4,009 for the same man on 
that same day. Prices ranged for good hands 
from $1,400 to $2,000. Is this not so? What 
are they worth now ? 

PAST AND PRESENT VIEWS OP THE SOUTH. 

I have said elsewhere that the continued agi- 
tation of the slavery question has resulted in a 
change of credence on that subject in the South. 
I could adduce the opinions of most of the prom- 
inent Southern statesmen, from the revolutiona- 
ry era down to the present time, in support of 
this view; but I prefer to let Vice-President 
Stephens, of the Southern Confederacy, their 
ablest statesman, speak for me. In his last re- 
ported speech, delivered very recently, in Atlan- 
ta, Georgia, he uses the following language: — 
'•But not to be tedious in enumerating the many 
changes for the better, allow me to allude to one 
other, though last, not least: the new Constitu- 
tion has put at rest forever all the agitating 
questions relating to our peculiar institution — 
African slavery as it exists among us — the pro- 
per status of the negro in our form of civiliza- 
tion. This was the immediate cause of the late 
rupture a.yid present revolution. Jefferson, in his 
forecast, had anticipated this as the rock upon 
which the old Union would split. Ho was right. 
What was conjecture with him is now a realized 
fact. But whether he fully comprehended the 
great truth upon which that rock stood, and 
stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas 
entertained by him. and most of the leading 



•statesmen of th« old Constitution, were, that 
the enslavement of the African race was in vi- 
olation of the laws of nature: that it w&&wrong 
in principle, socially, morally and politically. 
It was an evil they knew not well how to deal 
with ; but the general opinion of men of that 
day was, that somehow or other in the order o f 
Providence, the institution was to be evanescent 
and pass away. This idea, though not incorpo- 
rated in the Constitution, was the prevailing 
idea at the time. The Constitution, it is true, 
secured every essential guarantee to the institu- 
tion while it should last, and hence no argument 
can justly be used against the Constitutional 
guarantees thus secured, because of the common 
sentiments of the day. Their ideas, however, 
were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon 
the assumption of the equality of races. This 
was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and 
the idea of a Government built upon it ; when 
'the storm came and the wind blew it fell.' Our 
new Government is founded upon exactly the 
opposite idea ; its foundation is laid, its corner- 
stone rests upon the great truth that the negro 
is not equal to the white man — that slavery, 
subordination to the superior race, is his natu- 
ral and moral condition. This, our new Gov- 
ernment, is the first in the history of the world 
based upon this great physical and moral truth." 
Were it not for the tragic importance of the 
subject, as exemplified in the terrible conflict 
now pending, we would be tempted to exclaim, 
"O most lame and impotent conclusion !" Never 
less disposed to indulge in ridicule than now, I 
can yet hardly refrain when, with solemn into- 
nation of voice, Ihear the high-sounding phrase, 
"Our new Government is founded upon exactly 
the opposite idea; its foundation is laid, its 
corner-stone rests — " where ? On some endur- 
ing principle, for which future generations will 
rise up and call them blessed ? — On some newly 
discoyered but ever-existing Truth, eternal as 
the ages and fraught with lasting benefit to the 
hnman race ? No ; I am sorry to say it, no ! — 
But on what Mr. Stephens calls "this great 
physical and moral truth," iha.t"the negro is not 
equal to the white man .'" Without discussing 
nicities of language and inquiring how truth 
can be "physical" at all, being in itself an ab- 
straction and totally independent of circumstan- 
ces, I must say, as Horatio said to Hamlet, 
"There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave, 
To tell us this." 
Was the great truth of such solemn import that 
a world must be convulsed to give it fitting 
proclamation ? Must the hands of brethren be 
imbrued in each others' blood and the best and 
freest Government on earth be overthrown, that 
distinct averment shall be made of un undented 
fact f Who ever said the negro was equal to 
the white man ? Not the United States Gov- 
ernment, surely. On the contrary, Mr. Stephens 
himself candidly bears testimony, in tais very 
speech, to the faot that "Tie Constitu,t,ion (of 
the United States) it is true, secured every essen- 
tial guarantee to the institution while it should^ 
last, and h-ence no argument can be justly vs»ft 



II 



titutx u*e£ guarantees thus lecte- 
■ aause of the common sentiment of the day." 
This is certainly a recognition of inequality. 
i he Supreme Court has said : 

"In t!ie opinion of the Court, the legislation and 

histories of the times, and the language used in t) <■. 

Declaration of indepegdence, show that neither the 

elass of persons who had been imported as siaves nor 

dants, whether they had become free or 

ere then acknoti ledged as a part of the people, 

to be included in the general words of 

that memorable instrument. They had for more than 

a century been regarded as beings of an inferior order 

and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, 

either in soci il or public relation 

This opinion, written by Chief Justioe 'J 
hi the famous Dred Scott case, refutes the as- 
sumption of Mr. Stephens that the founders of 
our Government "rested upon the assumption of 
equality of races." My own views regarding 
this matter are given in an earlier part of this 
paper. He carries his point further, however, 
and to a limit which the framers of the Govern- 
ment do not appear to have justified as the le- 
gitimate consequence of inequality — "that sla- 
very, subordination to the superior race, is his 
natural and moral condition." His social and 
.political condition, as thing's then existed, they 
recognized to bo a state of slavery ; they recog- 
nized the negro as property, and passed fugitive 
slave laws to enforce his return to his master, 
and by the laws excluded all but "white people" 
from the franchises of citizenship; but, as .Mr. 
Stephens truly says, they regarded slavery as 
"wrong in principle"' and "in violation of the 
laws of nature." It may be that, knowing the 
circumstances which brought the two races to- 
gether, they did not tfeinfc the "natural and 
moral" law had anything whatever to do with 
it, and therefore, in enunciating the principles 
upon which the governmentof a mighty nation 
was to be established, were unwilling to commit 
themselves to the absurdity of asserting that, 
"naturally and morally," the negro was at all 
essential to the white man or the white man to 
the negro. Born in dilferent sections of the 
globe, and in different climates, their natural 
and moral condition was evidently a state of 
remote separation and real independence of each 
other. 

The whole history of the revolution and the 
formation of the Government shows that the 
founders of this Republic regarded the whiu 
man not only as better than the negro, but they 
had attained that stage of civilization which 
caused them to believe that the white man was 
fni, -{Lie of self-support and self-government 
Without the aid of the negro. They had not the 
slightest idea of that profound truth subse- 
quently discovered by John C. Calhoun, that 
African slavery was essential to a republican 
form of government. The}' did not believe with 
Senator Hammond, that a'politieai and social 
substratum of "Mud Sills" must necessarily 
underlie the governmental superstructure they 
were about to erect, and if they could nut get 
negroes to frame them out of, poor whit' ; 
*i>6uld answer the purpose almost as • 
they arc rather fe'jnesS sfhd jomc^hH' _-i 



insubordination. In fact, being white men 
themselves, and having a lii^rh respect for white 
men, even though they should labor for a liv- 
ing, and being desirous of -building upon this 
continent a free nation of white men, t hoy took 
to accomplish that object. Entertaining 
idea that white men 
were capable of self-governmenl without the 
i ' in any way, shape or form, 
either as mud sill or chin op, they so mod- 

elled the Constitution i I Lted States as 

n [y to protect cites of 

property, but, to a i ns' mode of 

-expression, "its foundations are laid, its corner- 
eat truth that man is ea- 
'" How sad, indeed, 
that the Vice-President of what desires to estsv 
blish itself as a n racy, should take 

pride in . eminent is foun- 

ded upon exactly i posite idea." Worse 

bat — that he should announce it to the 
world as a new discovery ! — The only thing ex- 
isting on the earth that is older than the flood. 
"Subordination of races" — new! His govern- 
ment, "the first in the history of the world, ba- 
sed upon this great physical and moral truth!" 
So! ''Plus j'y penst et plus j' en suit etonne J" 
As the earliest work conveying information on 
the subject, I would refer Vice-President Ste- 
phens to the Book of Genesis, and afterwards 
to any other Sacred or profane history he can 
lay hands on, and if, after a careful perusal of 
them, he thinks this new discovery worth much, 
I hope he will secure a patent right for the 
concern in which he is interested. 

Really, but for the fact that it would require 
a volume to itself and exhaust the history of 
the world through all ages, 1 think I could 
show this new doctrine to have been applied, 
with variations, to and by every people that ever 
existed. It is true that nations have not always 
limited themselves to a strict construction as to 
color ; but even in the form in which this "great 
physical and moral truth" emanates from th- 
wiseacres of the Southern Confederacy it lacks 
the spice of novelty. History records not the 
period of time when the negro was not a slave. 
The Tnrhs' and other Orientals had a habit of 
making eunuchs Of them, which doubtless, as a 
principle in political economy, was "fun lamen 
tally wrong." 

Nothing is more apparent that that our fore- 
fathers regarded this continer ■ ^rand 
theatre destined in the provid< od for 
the development of free institutions and the 
They did not insh to have 
the country overrun by inferior race-. Slaverj 
was not of their creation, but was forced upon 
the colonies against fheir solemn protest. The 
South passed laws prohibiting its introduction, 
but they were vetoed by royalty. "Brittania 
ruled the wave." Het oommerce, largely i 
ged in the slave trade and fast growing to be 
the rulinL' interest in the rbtec- 
ted. 'i '■ ; for la bor. — 
White i 
in sufficient quantities besides. • i ^hite 



i: 



men in the colonies wwuld furnish material to 
form a new nation. The home government dis- 
regarded the wish of the colonists, and passed 
laws retarding emigration, and this was among 
the greatest of the grievances enumerated in the 
Declaration of Independenc, as follows: 

"He (the King) has endeavored to prevent the pop- 
ulation of these States ; for that, purpose obstructing 
the laws of naturalization of foreigners, refusing to 
jiass others to encourage their migration thither, and 
raising the conditions of new appropriations of land." 

The statesmen of tjjat day rationally consid- 
ered that if they could, by a wise encouragement 
of emigration, get the necessary labor, they 
would save to themselves and to the country all 
the money expended in the purchase of negroes, 
and that instead of getting savages from Africa, 
of repulsive appearance, grossly ignorant and 
superstitious, and only to be regarded in the 
light of property, upon which they were com- 
pelled to pay taxes, and which in no way added 
to the military strength of the State, they 
would receive a population whose labor would 
bemore effective) who would become citizens and 
help bear the burdens of the State, who would 
be capable of bearing arms and thereby add 
strength to the nation. 

These views entered largely into the domes- 
tic policy of the Government at and immedi- 
ately after its formation. The same convention 
that framed the Constitution passed the famous 
ordinance of 1787, which concluded with six 
unalterable articles of perpetual compact, of 
which this is one : 

'•There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude in the said territories, otherwise than in 
punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall be 
duly convicted " 

The Constitution itself provided for the abo- 
lition of the slave trade. The laws of the laid 
declared it piracy. The naturalization laws, 
with the short probation to citizenship of only 
five years, were passed for the encouragement 
of white emigration, not negro nor Mongolian nor 
Indian: and no mail can put his hand upon any 
public enactment which indicates any other pol- 
icy on the part of our ancestors than that this 
continent should be the home of free white men, 
and that, while the institution of slavery was 
entitled to protection as property, it was not de- 
sible that the negro race or any other inferior 
race should be increased by the slave trade or 
otherwise to an extent incompatible with that 
idea. 

How different are the ideas which have given 
an impulse to the great Southern rebellion may 
be learned from the perusal of the following ex- 
tracts, mere samples, 'picked at random, from 
the sermons, speeches and essays of the advo- 
cates of disunion. 

In his Thanksgiving Sermon, November 29th, 
1800, the Rev. Dr. B. M. Palmer, of New Or- 
leans, uses the following language : 

"If, then, the South is such a people, what, at this 
juncture, is their providential trust ? I answer, that 
it is to conserve and perpetuate the institution of do- 
mestic slavery as now existing." * * * -'To the 
South is assigned the high position of defending be- 



fore all nations, the cause of all religion and of ail 
truth." *»,* * "It establishes the nature and so- 
lemnity of our present trust, to preserve and trans- 
mit our existing system of domestic servitude with the 
right, unchanged by man. to go out arid root itself 
wherever Providence and nature may carry it. This 
trust we will discharge in the face of the worst possi- 
ble peril." 

From a pamphlet on the subject by "A Ma- 
rylander," I extract the following distinct as- 
sertion of the Divine right of R"i>:gs : 

"There are ranks and grades in heaven ; and on 
earth God has appointed divers races of men. some to 
r;. and some to obey ; and the slave is put in bond- 
age by the same Divine Tower which puts the King 
on his throne.'' 

Mr. Russell, the correspondent of the London 
Times, says, "No where is the opposition to uni- 
versal suffrage so great as in the South," and 
that a great many, a majority of those with 
whom he.had been thrown into social connexion, 
especially in South Carolina, expressed their 
desire for a more aristocratic form of govern- 
ment, and wished that they had an English 
King to rule over them. They were well aware 
that the conditions of society were such at pre- 
sent as to prevent the accomplishment of their 
wishes, but that did not hinder the expression 
of them. I know that there are many who pro- 
fess to disbelieve in the aristocratic tendency of 
the Southern movement, but Mr. Russell's ob- 
servations are more than corroborated by a 
thousand speeches and reviews to which refer- 
ence could be had. From DeBows Review for 
February, 1861, I extract the following: 

"They knew that under a democratic form, with 
"universal suffrage" for its cardinal principle, the 
majority of the people, in whose hands the powers of 
government vested, being condemned, by the inexor- 
able law of necessity to material occupations, unfa- 
vorable to the development of thought, and as a conse- 
quence, precluding the attainment of that degree of 
intelligence and political information requisite to an 
enlightened exercise of the elective franchise, never 
selected the best men for their rulers and representa- 
tives." — 

Where can be found a more degrading opinion 
of labor, or" denial of the right .of the majority 
to govern, or of the white's man's capacity for 
self-government ? 

— "The poorer classes are born to servile labor there 
[in the North) as in Europe. Ever since the negroes 
have been liberated, and the soor whites degradated, 
by being substituted for negroes to wait on the rich, 
the women of the New England States have been 
breeding fanatics instead of heroes." 

"The imperial and autocratic dictum, 'L'etat e'est 
mbi,' comes with no better grace from an indolent and 
dictatorial majority than from the lips of an absolute 
monarch ; and those pestilent and pernicious dogmas, 
'the greatest good to the greatest number,' 'the ma- 
jority shall rule,' are, in their practical application, 
the fruitful source of disorders never to be quieted, 
revolutions the most radical and sanguinary, philoso- 
phies the most false, and passions the most wild, des- 
tructive and ungovernable." 

"Prominent among the features about to be formed 
for the government of the 'Confederation of the South' 
\ ill be a provision for securing a, permanent repre- 
sentation of the landed interest in the national legis- 
lature." * * * "The idea will not be adopted at 
once, (so firm a hold upon the public mind ave the 
fallacious and demoralizing ^doctrines of the French 
philosophy,) but it will come in the natural progress 
of political thought." 



n 



'■ rhs insult ition of a;i hereditary Senate and ■■' •• 
(Is Russell right or notr) — "is the political 
form best auit< d to tin ■■■ ufus and most expressive of 
the ideas of -Southern civilizatioi ; hut al the same 
time a policy wholly incapable of realization, 

lal States retain the atl ribute of idi 
i i y, and party passions and interests 
are permitted to stifle the expression of an en i i 
ed and patriotic public sentiment." 

The fact that it "will come" La already being 
realized. Gov. Brown, of Georgia, frightened 
at tho usurpation of Davis' despotism, on tlu> 
4th of August, 1861, addi ■' the returned 
Georgia troops of Gen. Phillips' brigade, at At- 
lanta, in the following significant lang tage : 

"He regretted to see so many indications of a dis- 
position on the part of many persons under the new 
nment to ignore the great doctrine of State 
and to treat the States which are the very au- 
thors of its existence, and which have infused breath 
into its nostril-:, as its mere provinces or dependencies. 
During the war he was willing to yield everything 
which could be yielded without a violation of an im- 
portant principle, but lie feared at the end of the con- 
test thai the great batt I of stoics sovereignty, which was 
fought in the Revolution of 177(3, had to be fought over 
'again. 

"We have now as then two classes of statesmen, 
each sustained by many followers. The one class des- 
irous of a strong central government, probably prefer- 
ring, if they did not fear to risk an avowal of their 
sentiments, a limited monarchy similar to that of 
Great Britain, or other form of government which 
will accomplish the same object under a different name; 
the other class desiring and advocating the democrat- 
ic form established by the patriots of 1776, retaining 
to the States their sovereignty, and delegating to the 
general government only such powers as are necessary 
to transact their foreign affairs as a confederation of 
States, and such internal affairs as cannot be conduc- 
ted by a single State confederated with sister States, 

'•The preservation of the rights of the States was 
all that had saved the South, and enabled her to es- 
cape from the subjugation and degradation which 
awaited her in the old government, which was fast 
becoming a consolidated empire. He warned the peo- 
ple of Georgia and of the South to match with a jeal- 
ous eye. and to oppose with determined hostility every 
effort, whether by construction or by bold usurpation of 
powers which may be made by those in authority, or by 
those seeking position, to consolidate the power of the 
people in the hands of the few, or to destroy State sov- 
nty and build upon its ruins either a monarchy or 
a consolidated aristocracy." 

So soon do the usurpations of power make 
themselves felt. Governor Brown is right — 
those fellows at Richmond need watching. — 
'•Tho price of liberty is eternal vigilance." God 
grant that our brethren of the South may not 
learn that lesson too lato! Is not the purpose 
of the following unmistakeable ? 

"Painful as the reflection must be to all such as 
subscribe to the Utopian philosophy, and have an abi- 
ding faith in the capacity of man for continuous and 
enlightened'self-rule, it must be co fessed that the 
experiment of the Democratic Ilepublic of America 
has failed." 

"We of the South must so modify our State insti- 
tutions as to remove the people further from the direct 
exercise of power." 

"It is a characteristic of opinion in the South, that 
all men see the necessity of more and stronger gov 
ernment." 

"We are the most aristocratic people in the world. 
Pride of caste and color and privileges makes every 
white man an aristocrat ih feeling. Aristocracy is 
the only safeguard of liberty." 

God help as ! I do not intend to waste time 



ami paper in refuting the aforegoing "poHti<xtJ 
truth," or any of them. There they are— all 
(except l!uv. Brown's) taken from articles and 
sjh'-i ches in advocacy and support of secession. 
I shall not dispute with Sir. Stephens his 
"grand truth" that "Our new government is 
upon exactly the opposite idea" to that 
■ ; ■■ ms- the basis of the United States Gov- 
ernment. ] must say, however, I do not think 
the new affair any improvement: and the argu- 
mjei advanced in support of itare not such as 
a '.vanced by our forefathers.- Perhaps, as 
i ,. "they were in error — they were funda- 

mentally wrong," but I have still so great a 
ion for tho names of Washington, Jeffer- 
son, Franklin, and their glorious compeers, that 
my mind is unwilling to substitute in their pla- 
ces, Yancey and Keitt and Stephens and Davis. 

TI1E AF1UCANIZATION OP THE SOUTH 

Will bethe certain and INEVITABLE CONSE- 
QUENCE of the success of the Rebellion — the 
giving up of the largest half of this grand con- 
tinent, intended by God for the development of 
the highest race of human beings, to the sup- 
port and maintainance of the lowest race of 
human beings. 

I admit that the Constitution of the Confed- 
erate States prohibits'the slave trade, but — one 
of the first acts of their Congress was to reduce 
the crime from piracy to a lesser grade. In 
spite of the blockading squadrons of America, 
England and France upon the coast of Africa 
- — in spite of the penalties of piracy — that trade, 
to a large extent, has been carried on for many 
years past. The number of slavers seized is 
an index of the extent of the trade wrhich can 
afford so many losses and yet be sufficiently pro- 
fitable to risk cargoes and life upon. It is said 
that for the last three years there has been ono 
slaver per week iitted out in New York city 
alone. It has long been regarded as a good 
joke to run a cargo of slaves into a Southern 
port, and the laws against the trade have re- 
mained dead letters upon the statute books. — 
The conviction of a slave trader in any port, 
from New York to New Orleans, has been an 
impossibility. 

A nation mu st obey the impulse which brought 
it into being, and a clauso in a paper Constitu- 
tion without effective laws, effectively adminis- 
tered to support it, is of no more avail than a 
sheet of paper to stay the momentum of a 
freshly fired cannon-ball. What the South most 
needs for its development is working popula- 
tion : the color of that population will be deter- 
mined by prevailing laws and opinions. 

Virginia has an area of 39,365,280 acres, ef 
which only 10,360,185, a little over one-fourth, 
were improved in 1850. North Carolina con- 
tains 32,150,560 acres; improved 5,153,977, or 
about one-sixth. South Carolina contains 
18,806,100 acres; improved 4,072,651, less than 
one-fourth. Georgia contains 37,120,000 acres; 
improved only 6,378,179. Alabama contain* 
32,162jOS0 acres; improved only 1,435,61 1 acreg. 
Mississippi contains 30,179,000 acres ; improved 
only 3,444,358 acre?. Tennessee contains 2?,.- 



u 



184,000 acres.; improved only 5 175,173 acre?. 
Louisiana contains 26,3fc*4.000 acres, of which 
only 1,590,025 were improved in I860, or scarce- 
ly one-twentieth part of the surface of the en- 
tire State. Arkansas contains 33,406,720 acres; 
only 781,541, less than one thirty-third part, 
under cultivation. Texas presents a still greater 
disparity. I have not been able to find the 
number of acres under cultivation, but the ex- 
tent of this magnificent State is such that miles 
will give a better idea of it. Texas is 800 miles 
in length and 750 in breadth ; is equal in extent 
of territory to the Empire of France : nearly six 
times as large as the State of Pennsylvania: 
the greater part of its soil of great agricultural 
capabilities, equal to the support of 30,000,000 
to 40,000,000 of people ; and its population by 
the last ceneus of 1860 is only 415,999 whites, 
184,956 slaves. 

The inexhaustible resources of these States 
have scarcely commenced their development. It 
is desirable that they should be developed. For 
this population is necessary. Under the Con- 
stitution and laws of the United States, that 
population was gradually pouring in. The 
spirit of cur institutions, as well as the laws ac- 
tually enacted, invited foreign immigration. — 
Participation in the elective franchise and other 
privileges of citizenship had not been the least 
of those Inducements which our country held 
out to the people of other lands. Material pros- 
perity had, doubtless, a great influence, but 
freedom had a still greater influence. I will not 
assert positively, but I have a distinct impres- 
sion that a law has already been passed by the 
Southern Confederacy extending the period for 
the naturalization of foreigners to twenty-one 
years This includes persons who are now cit- 
izens of the United States, as well as those who 
eome from Europe. The spirit of their institu- 
tions, as explained in the speeches of their pub- 
lic men, is doubtless opposed to immigration. — 
The advocates of secession are unequivocally 
opposed to foreigners ; and it is instructive to 
hear gentlemen so lately by their party affilia- 
tions the warmest supporters of Jeffersonianism, 
who could point out to you how it had built up 
a grand and mighty nation in an incredibly 
short space of time, indulging in bitter invec- 
tive against the foreign-born citizens. Possibly 
the general attachment of this class to the Union 
has something to do with it ; but certainly not 
all, for look : — 

In Russell's letter of June 20 we find : 
" 'Well, sir, when things are settled, we'll just take 
the law into our own hands. Not a man shall have a 
vote unless he is American born, and by degrees we'll 
get rid of these men who disgrace us.' 'Are not many 
of your regiments composed of Germans and Irish — 
of foreigners, in fact ?' 'Yes, sir.' It occurred to me 
that this would be rather a poor reward for the men 
who were engaged in establishing the Southern Con- 
federacy.' 

On the other hand, he says : 

"Of one thing there can be no doubt — a slave State 
annot loug exist without a slave trade. The poor 
whites who will have won the fight will demand their 
?hare of the spoils. The land is abundant, and ill 
that is wanted to give them fortune? ; e a Ripply oi 



alavee. They will httTe that in spite of ti'.pu mna 
tera, urfless a stronger power prevents the aceorn- 
plishmeht of their wishes." 

In the year 1856, Governor Adams, of South 
Carolina, in his annual message, advocated the 
re-opening of the slave trade, and in the course 
of his arguments uses the following language: 

"If we cannot supply the demand for slave labor, 
then we must expect to be supplied with a species of 
labor which we do not want, and which is, from the 
very nature of things, antagonistic to our institu- 
tions." * * * "Irrespective, however, of inter- 
est, the Act of Congr Lg the slave trade pi- 
racy is a brand upon us which I think it important to 
remove. If the trade be piracy, the slave must bo 
plunder, and no ingenuity can avoid the logical ne- 
cessity for such a conch] 

It is useless to multiply extracts, as South 
Carolina has given the key-note to this whole 
movement. She is always, as a body politic, 
somewhat ahead of her coadjulors ; but she in- 
structs them in time. The stigma of piracy has 
already been removed — the rest wwl soon f'ol- 
law. The policy of the Southern Confederacy 
then will necessarily be 

The Discouragement of White Immigration, 

and 

The Encowrgemcnt of Is'tyro Importation. 

This results, as a logical necessity, from their 
whole system; and the fact that the three na- 
tions now engaged in the suppression of tho 
slave trade are mainly dependant upon the se- 
ceded States for cotton, may have the effect, if 
the Southern Confederacy, once firmly estab- 
lished, insists upon it, of removing the African 
squadrons or risking continual war. 

But even with all of that class of labor that 
could be attained by depopulating Africa, the 
immense mineral and manufacturing resources 
of the South cannot be developed under the 
leading ideas of "our new government." These 
require a white population, and that, a laboring 
white population — not such an one as we are 
led to infer are, or would be, the proper inhabi- 
tants of its country^, by the Richmond Whig, 
which, in a recent issue, commenting upon Mr. 
Russell's letter, wherein he speaks of his grati- 
fication at again seeing whito men at work in 
the field, says : "We regard such labor as a de- 
gradation, and we do not see why he should 
desire to see his white brethren at that sort of 
labor, unless it is his pleasure to see them de- 
graded." 

One thing is very sure : degrading or not, 
hats and shoes, clothing and leather cannot be 
made without white labor. Machinery and 
ships, houses and agricultural implements can- 
not be had : lead and coal and iron and silver 
mines cannot be worked without white labor — 
and efficient white labor can only be had where 
it is respected. 

There are those who charge upon the Tariff 
tho great commercial and manufacturing success 
of the North as compared with the South. The 
same tariff operated uniformly, as well in one 
section of the country as the other. There have 
been no discriminations in favor of a section, 
esc«pt as to the sugar duty, that favored the 



section" blessed with a warm climate, the colder 
sections being unable to produce sugar, except 

from the maple : but there was no climate to 
interfere with the equal operations of the tariff 
on manufactured goods, and "away down South 
in the fields of cotton" they bad the advantage 
of saving the cost of transportation two ways. 
The exaggerated expectations of the South in 
regard to commerce and manufactures will never 
be realized, without a great modification of the 
spirit predominant in this rebellion. There has 
ever been so strong a bond of material interests 
between the two sections of our country, that 
one is surprised at all this declamation about 
the benefits to result to the South from disuni- 
on ; none the less so when one comes to inves- 
tigate the spirit which presides over the forma- 
tion of the new government. 

The preposterous exaggerations of Senator 
Hammond and other leading men upon the sub 
jeet of the comparative wealth of the two sec- 
tions and the undue proportion of the burdens 
of Government sustained by the South, have 
had much to do with the present fever of hate 
expressed towards the Union by misled men, 
who imagine themselves rich by the convincing 
logic of false figures, but know themselves poor 
by the still stronger logic of empty pockets. — 
They are anxious to reconcile these contradic- 
tions, and to prove by separation that figures 
won't lie. It is a terrible sum they are working 
out, and one which will undoubtedly show more 
subtraction than addition to the pockets of this 
generation. The error of these political econo- 
mists arises from their regarding the whole cot- 
ton crop as "surplus products," simply because 
of its exportation, and the income arising from 
it as all clear gain to the country. Suppose the 
South had factories enough of her own to work 
up every pound of cotton she could raise, so 
that not one pound of raw material should leave 
the States, and therefore the census would show 
no return from that source — would the South be 
that much poorer ? So one would think from 
the crazy logic of that school of politicians who 
are trying to mend the fortunes of the South by 
destroying her home market. Japan is not im- 
poverished, although she has no commerce. — 
The only true source of wealth is labor, and a 
nation is rich just in proportion to the amount 
of surplus products over and above the necessi- 
ties of her people. If her chief product is a 
material which she cannot use, but is compelled 
to dispose of en masse to countries that can use 
it, and gets in exchange articles of necessity for 
clothing and living, ber wealth is not the gross 
amount of exportation, but the balance left of 
what it produces, after the cost of living and 
production shall have been deducted. How cal- 
culations based upon this idea would affect the 
South I have not time in this article to show. 
Those who expect riches to flow in upon them 
because of this separation will be grievously 
disappointed. Population first, then labor, then 
wealth — this is the order of things ordained by 
Heaven; it is not in the power of any autocra- 
cy to set it aside or reverse it. 






The day will yet come whr-r. llic abusi I 
deceived South will call her recreant lea I 
account. Maddened by the vile misrepresenta- 
tions of those who have been, and will yet prove 
to be, as faithless to her as to the glorious Union 
from which they have dragged her by vi lence 
and fraud — placed in a false position of armed 
antagonism by conspirators whom she trusted 
only to be betrayed — persuaded by them still 
that there is nothing for her te do but to resist 
subjugation'and the liberation of her slaves at 
the hands of the Government which is obliged 
to protect her from both — the South already be- 
gins to perceive that where she had prosperity 
and peace, now she has adversity and war — that 
she bas cast loose her anchor from the Govern- 
ment which sheltered her and secured her rights 
and liberties, to find herself subject to a milita- 
ry despotism, and her boasted States' Rights 
fast absorbed in the usurpations of a Govern- 
ment whose tendencies are, as Gov. Brown says, 
towards /'a limited monarchy or consolidated 
aristocracy." The fatal error of making a po- 
litical institution out of property, and the ab- 
surd proposition that for its protection an equi- 
librium of States, slave and free, must be main- 
tained, have at last, culminated in this. Where 
will it end ? HE only who ruleth the destinies 
of nations can tell ! This we know — that the 
path of duty is straight and plain — that but for 
the taking up of arms against our Government 
by those who owed it the duties of citizenship, 
we to-day should have been revelling in peace 
and prosperity. On their heads must rest the 
blood shed in this unnatural war. God grani 
that it may soon cease! — that the madness o) 
the hour may pass away, and the men, blinded 
by passion and goaded on by the vile misrepre- 
sentations of reckless politicians who desire to 
permanently establish, themselves in power, 
may again have their minds opened to the pure 
light of reason, and range themselves beneath 
that glorious banner for which their fathers 
fought — a banner which, on land and sea, by 
the firesides of their own homes or in the remo- 
test corners of the earth, has been their shield 
and protection. 

Men of Maryland, as in the days that tried 
men's souls your fathers were not found want- 
ing in devotion to principle, or deeds to render 
that devotion glorious : let me conjure you by 
the memory of those deeds to stand fast by the 
faith they taught you. When, with specious 
pretexts, the missionaries of a new faith tell 
you "they were fundamentally wrong," look 
around you and say, "This was the work of our 
fathers, and they who made it were happy. — 
Beneath the shelter of the glorious tree of Lib- 
erty which they planted, it is our wish to repose 
in peace. That which gave contentment to 
them hath bountifully blessed us. Their work 
was good, and the world rejoiced in it. Here 
they gave shelter to the oppressed — here they 
taught that man could be free without license, 
and realized the blessings of Liberty regulated 
by law. We revere their memories — we will 
stand fast by the ^ faith they taught us. Tit 



18 



panicidai hand uplifted against, thajr work— let 
it be accursed ! Thongli it should raze their 
temples to ili" groand and strew asbesover the 

homes of their children, yet wi 1 their glorious 
principles rise, like the fabled Phoenix, to in- 
spire and nerve the heart oT generations yet to 
come.'' 

The great Father of his Country, who "being 
dead yet speaketh," calls to'you from the grave 
to stand fast by the Union, "for it is the main 
pillar in the edifice of your real independence, 
the support of your tranquillity at home, your 
peace abroad; of your safety; of your pros- 
perity ; of that, very liberty which you so highly 
pri/e'." lie tells you to "cherish a cordial, ha- 
bitual and immovable attachment to it ; accus- 
toming yourselves to think and speak of it as 
the palladium of your political safety and pros- 
perity ; watching for its preservation with jeal- 
ous anxiety ; discountenancing whatever may 
suggest a suspicion that it tin IN ANY EVENT BE 
ABANDONED." 



In the midst of the harrassihg difficulties 
which surround you, let no igmts ffilim* seduce 
you from the simple path of I>U'J Y. Let not 
the blind nialieo of partisanship or false theo- 
ries of inteiest decoy you from the : 
your country. There are ma) 
you — there will be more, resulting from i; 
a'ice and m'al-administration of the laws by 
those who have been intrusted with power. Re? 
memher, they are a part of the curse of disuni- 
on — of complications arising from wide -i 
treachery. The darkest hour of trial may not 
yet bavo come — should that be so, keep you I 
i ' faith fixed firmly on the glorious constel- 
lation of the Union, as the tempest-tossed ma- 
riner steers his course over the dark ocean by 
the aid of the polar star. Clouds may obscure 
it, but he knows it is there; and that when the 
tempest has spent its fury, the steady and un- 
failing light of his guiding star will again aid 
bim in his course to a safe hai 
Baltimore County, August, } 861- 



W60 








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